You Don't Know About Me (29 page)

After that, I heard the rumble of his voice but not his words. Like when you zone out on a preacher. Sometimes you just have to drift away to another place for a while.

I was nodding out when we passed a route sign. I saw
20
, but under it I thought I saw
EAST
, not
WEST
. I kept pretending to doze and worked the GPS out of my right pocket, turned it on, and stole a look. The arrow was pointing straight behind us, and we were 270 miles from Portland!

I bolted upright. “We're going east. You're going the wrong way!”

“No, we're not,” Nico said calmly.

“Didn't you see the sign?”

Momi rose up on the seat behind us. “Calm down, William.”

“No!” I yanked up my GPS and waved it. “We're fifty miles farther from Portland than we were at Burning Man!”

Nico eyeballed the GPS. “Aren't you full of surprises?”

“You're right, Billy,” Momi said, trying to sound nice. “We're going back to Idaho.”

“Why?”

“We have one last scene to shoot in our un-movie,” Nico said. “It's the big antiaction sequence and we want you to be the star of it.”

“I don't wanna be in your movie! Lemme out!”

Momi leaned in next to me. “We think you'll be happy to be in our film when we explain your contract.”

“What contract?”

Nico shot me a fake smile. “It starts with three names. Tilda Allbright, Joe Douglas, and Ruah Branch, which adds up to Billy William We Know Who You Are.”

I sat there, stunned and furious. Then they told me how, before the Sun Dance, they'd seen the cell phone in the pocket of my backpack. My lie about not having a cell phone made them suspicious. When I was out on the playa before the dance, they downloaded the call record onto their computer and called some of the numbers. They talked to my mom and told her I was fine. They called Joe Douglas and learned he was the agent for a missing baseball player, Ruah Branch.

“Did you tell my mom where I was?” I demanded.

“No,” Nico said. “She asked, but we believe that even a runaway has some rights to privacy.”

Before I could scream that going through the phone had violated my privacy, Momi asked, “What do you know about Ruah Branch?”

“Nothing. I found the phone in a campground and used it to call my mom.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then why does the call record show a call to your mother a week ago,” Nico said, “followed by two calls from Ruah's agent—the second one going on for several minutes—followed by another call to your mother yesterday morning? Is Joe Douglas your agent, too, or did Mr.
Branch come back for his phone, make a few calls, then give it to you as a gift?”

“We doubt it,” Momi added.

“It makes more sense that you and Mr. Branch traveled together for a while.”

I was busted. “Okay, yeah. He picked me up and drove me for a couple days,” I admitted, but I had other worries. “Did you make the calls on the cell phone?”

“No, its service has been suspended,” Nico said. “And even if it worked, we'd never do anything as low as rack up minutes on someone else's phone.”

“Yeah, right. Whose phone did you use?”

“We keep one for emergencies,” Momi confessed.

In the dim glow I could see Nico's eyebrows working. “There was one call we couldn't get to the bottom of: the nine-one-one in Colorado.”

Momi did some eyebrow work of her own. “Lots of mysteries, William. Do you want to tell us about it?”

“You've never told me the truth—why should I tell you anything?”

She looked at Nico. “He has a point.”

“You never planned to go to Portland, did you?”

“No, that part's true,” Nico answered.

Momi finished his thought. “We're going to the Portland International Film Festival, but it's not till February.”

“Here's our proposal,” he said. “We think you're perfect for our un-movie. If you'll go back to our canyon for just a half day of shooting, after that we'll put you on a bus to Portland. And we promise, we'll keep everything we learned about you and Ruah Branch under our hats.”

“There's nothing to keep under your hats,” I told him. “He gave me a ride for two days, that's all.”

“Oh, c'mon—”

Momi shushed him. “Let me handle this, Nikki.” She turned to me with a put-on smile. “Knowing how smooth you are with girls, William, I'm sure nothing happened. But we did check into why Mr. Branch might have gone AWOL. All we found were rumors. But eventually the story of where he's been will come out. And it would be a shame, given the rumors about Mr. Branch, if the world learned that he was gallivanting around the countryside with a cute young boy.”

I wanted God to squash their van like a bug, even if I was in it.

“We know, Billy,” Nico said. “We're despicable. That's what happens when you spend too many years in Hollywood. That's why we're making the film that'll destroy Hollywood as we know it.”

Momi clapped her hands. “And we're thrilled you're going to be in it.”

“It's going to make you a star!” he added. “An antiaction star!”

I prayed to God to stop me from taking out my Leatherman and slitting their throats right then and there. I could've done it easy. But I didn't. If I did, I would've had to spend more than another miserable day with them. I would've been stuck between them on some burning couch in hell, forever.

I didn't think that night could go on any longer, but it did. A lot longer.

After we drove back into Idaho, we went through tiny towns as we headed south to the Potlatchers' canyon. Going through a town called Homedale, I almost jumped out of my seat when I spotted something that didn't fit the empty streets and weather-beaten buildings. A white camper glowed under the sign for Combs Car Corral. I thought, no way could it be Ruah's. Then I saw the crumpled front end and realized we were less than ten miles from where Giff had crashed in a gully. My mind raced. Had the camper been towed there and left? Was it being fixed? If it was being fixed, could Ruah still be around waiting for it? If he was, where would he be? As we turned in the main intersection, I checked every direction. Up the street was a lighted sign:
SUNNYDALE MOTEL
. If he was in Homedale, he might be there.

As we rode out of town, I pretended to be sleepy. Between fake nod-outs, I snuck a hand in my pocket and held down the thumb stick on my GPS. My new waypoint was set. No matter how many turns we took getting to their canyon, I had a GPS trail back to Homedale.

When we got to their brush fence I helped Momi open the gate. She let me close it. I was ready. I had two pages from
Huck Finn
. There was just enough moonlight for me to see as I slipped the folded pages in the gate so it wouldn't latch shut. I could open it again later without knowing the security code.

On the way into “Dogleg Canyon” I could only see what the headlights hit. It wasn't what I expected. There were rusty railroad tracks, lots of strange shapes, and the bases of metal towers. The moonlight lit the towers' dark, creepy
silhouettes. At the end of the canyon we stopped in front of two low buildings backed up against the rock cliff. In front of the bigger building, the headlights caught a frame of timbers holding up a rusty sign:
EARTH WARS PRODUCTIONS
.

With the headlights shining on the smaller building, we got out and walked toward it. At the end of the porch a bicycle leaned against the wall. A sign made of rusty metal hanging over the door read
CAVE SWEET CAVE
.

Inside, Nico lit a gas lantern and the sign's meaning became clear. The living room and kitchen were under a tin roof, but the bedroom was built into an old mine tunnel in the canyon wall. I kept up my sleepy act, which was a no-brainer since it was nearly three a.m. Yawning, I asked, “Don't you have electricity?”

“We'll have it tomorrow,” Nico answered, “after we restart the generator.”

Momi fixed a bed for me on a saggy couch in the living room. I set my backpack on a chair made from a wooden barrel. Nico came over and plucked it off the chair. I grabbed for the backpack but he yanked it away. “We'll hold it as bond for the night, in case you decide to run away. But I wouldn't advise it, 'cause the rattlesnakes
do
come out at night.”

They disappeared into their cave bedroom and shut the door. Cave Sweet Cave was about right. They were Neanderthals.

In a few minutes they were snoring. I stuffed the couch-bed with pillows to look like I was sleeping and snuck outside. I pushed the bike toward the wheel ruts and mounted up.

At the mouth of the canyon the moonlight was less blocked by the high walls, so it was easier to see. The gate swung open no problem. Luckily, there were no rattlesnakes wanting to help. I checked my GPS. I was twelve miles from Homedale. I had to get there and back before sunrise.

Except for a couple of buzzing neon signs, Homedale looked like a ghost town. I went to the Sunnydale Motel and walked the bike toward the rooms in the back. They were all dark. A few cars were parked in front of them. Ruah could've been in any of them, or none.

Remembering how he always stopped at the farthest pump from the mini-mart, I figured he might be in the room farthest back. I thought about knocking on the last door and working my way toward the office. Stupid: someone could have a gun and shoot me for waking them in the middle of the night. Calling his name would've been dumb too. Ruah wasn't an everyday name. If someone heard me and ID'd him,
Ruah
would shoot me. I got an idea, not much smarter, but it was the best my brain could do, given the hour. I did what Huck and Tom did when they called each other out of the house in the middle of the night. “Me-yow. Me-yow.”

After another “me-yow” the window in the second-to-last
room lit up. My foot was on the bike pedal, ready to rip if I had to.

The door cracked open, followed by a harsh whisper. “Shhh!” The door opened wider. With the light behind him, I couldn't see his face. I didn't have to. I recognized his cut silhouette; there was the bulge of a cast on his left forearm. “Enough catcalling,” Ruah whispered. “Get in here.”

I set the bike down and scooted into the room.

“Keep your voice down,” he warned. “The walls are paper thin.” He motioned me into the only chair in the cramped room. I sat down as he pulled on a big football jersey. He sat on the edge of the bed, shaking his head in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I saw Giff. I figured you might be around.” I checked out his cast. “Is your arm okay?”

“It'll be fine.”

“Did they ID you at the hospital?”

“Nope. I paid in cash and they went for my fake ID. I also paid the local tow guy enough to keep the cops out of it.”

I started to ask another question but he cut me off. “Why are you still in Idaho? Was your father's place in Notus?”

“No, it's in Portland.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I got sidetracked.”

“By what?”

“Some people.”

His brow knitted. “What people?”

I forced a laugh like it was no big deal. “Just a couple of nut jobs.” I changed the subject. “Why are
you
still here?”

“I'm waiting on a new radiator and window for the RV. The parts get delivered in the morning, then I head for Seattle in the afternoon.”

It surprised me; he'd never said anything about Seattle. “Why there?”

“Just my own ‘nut jobs' I've gotta deal with.”

I wanted to ask what he was talking about, but there was no time. “Would it be okay if I rode with you tomorrow?”

A smile split his face. “Did you get more
Huck
to read?”

I nodded, deciding not to tell him it was only one chapter.

“You're on,” he said.

“Great.” I jumped up to go. “I'll be back here tomorrow as soon as I can.”

He stayed seated. “What's the rush?”

I moved to the door. “I gotta get back.”

“To the nut jobs?”

“Yeah. I promised to do something with them in the morning.”

“What?”

I figured there was no harm in the truth. “They wanna put me in their movie.”

“What kind of movie?”

“They call it an un-movie.”

“What the hell is that?”

“I'm not sure.” I shrugged. “I'll find out soon.”

He stood up. “Billy, forget the movie.” He gestured to the second bed in the room. “You can stay here.”

I shifted my weight. It felt like the room was crunching smaller. “I can't.” I wanted to tell him about the Potlatchers
stealing my stuff and holding me hostage, but I couldn't. Then I would've had to explain how they were blackmailing me because they knew about Ruah. I reached for the doorknob. “I gotta go.”

“How 'bout I pick you up tomorrow?”

“No, I'll come back here.”

“I'd rather come get you. I'd like to see what kind of people make an un-movie.”

I tried to act like the Potlatchers were as innocent as spring rain. “They're nuthin special. How 'bout if I'm done first I'll come into town, and if the camper's done first you come get me.”

“Fair enough. Where will you be?”

As I gave him directions to Dogleg Canyon I made getting there sound super complicated. But he never threw up his hands and told me to just come into town. When I told him about the brush fence at the mouth of the canyon I didn't say it had a locked gate. If he did come for me I didn't want him getting past the gate. The last thing anybody needed was the Potlatchers laying eyes on Ruah Branch. He was already getting blackmailed by Joe Douglas. If the Potlatchers got their claws into him there'd be no telling what might happen.